After achieving a first class pass in the Preliminary Theological Examination in 1893 he went out to South Africa, and was licensed as a catechist in the parish of Stellenbosch, in the Anglican Diocese of Cape Town, on 24 October 1893.
He was ordained priest by William West Jones in St. George's Cathedral, Cape Town, on 8 March 1896.
In 1897 he became chaplain to the Bishop of Mashonaland, William Thomas Gaul, and to the Railway Mission, in what is now the Church of the Province of Central Africa, and during the Anglo-Boer War was chaplain to the Southern Rhodesian contingent, being awarded the Queen's South Africa Medal, with two clasps.
In 1901 he took up an appointment in Basutoland (Lesotho), then part of the Diocese of Bloemfontein, as principal of St Mary's Training College, Thlotse Heights.
He was friendly and simple-hearted, yet of a forceful character, and often laboured single-handed in remote districts to further the work of the Church" (Boucher).